My mother was an ex-nun and my father had left the seminary where he was hoping to be a Catholic monk. To make a long story short, both of them had found themselves disheartened by changes made and enforced by the Vatican II council. While they departed from their respective orders, they still maintained strong ties to their Catholic beliefs. They met, dated, married, and had yours truly. I was raised Catholic like 98.7% of the New Orleans population. I went to Catholic school, I participated in all of the bizarre ritualistic sacraments such as Baptism (we’ll go into that one in a second), the Holy Eucharist (First Communion), Penance (Confession), and finally, Confirmation (becoming an adult in the Catholic church). Of all of these sacraments, Baptism is the one that pisses me off the most. Why? I always thought that baptizing a baby was a really fucked up thing. Basically, you are denying a human being the right to choose his/her own faith and you are choosing that human’s spiritual path.

As a kid, as miserable as I was in my personal life (bullied and picked on for years), I was a pretty happy Catholic. I went to church every Sunday, I knew the mass dialog by heart and sang along with every song as I would with any Iron Maiden, KISS, or Twisted Sister song. I didn’t mind all of these things and as far as I knew, this was just shit that everyone did and it was just part of life. Like any young person from any kind of religious faith, I began to have my doubts about not just Catholicism but religion and belief in “God” in general. This all started when I was in 8th grade. I was in my Religion class and somehow the discussion of sins came up and that homosexuality was a sin punishable by God. “For man to lay down with another man is a sin” I remember the nun telling the class. It was at this time that it was disclosed to me that my Uncle (my mother’s brother) was gay. I raised my hand I said, “Sister. My uncle is gay and he is one of the best people I know. He goes to church every Sunday. Does this mean he’s going to hell?” Without missing a beat, the penguin says, “Donald, God makes exceptions.” God makes exceptions? This was enough to lead into a doubting of the realness of this all. How can this “book” that you hold to be the word of God say one thing but you, a mouthpiece of the Lord so to speak, have the right to assume that God makes exceptions? Did he/she tell you this on a conference call? Did you have coffee with him/her?

The instance that truly solidified my questioning of it all was later that same year. Me and this dude were hanging out behind the church (after school hours) smoking cigarettes. We were busted by one of the penguins and she scolded us verbally. She shook her long, skinny finger at us and told us that we were to attend confession the next morning before school. I asked her why we needed to confess anything and she said, “Mr. de Leaumont. Don’t you question what I say” and I said, “I just want to know what I’m confessing. What did I do wrong?” She tells me, “You were smoking and smoking is defying your body which is the Lord’s temple.” This just all seemed weird but hey, who was I to argue? Anyways, I went to confession the next morning and the priest entered the room and immediately a pack of Winstons fell out of his shirt pocket. He asked me why I was there and I said, “Because Sr. Nan said that smoking is a sin.” He just looked at me blankly and said, “You better get to class.” This proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

That day is a day I still remember like it was yesterday. I felt like a door in my mind was opened up and all of the sudden I was seeing things in a whole new light. My faith, my beliefs, my God, everything was in question. From then on, I went from being the happy Catholic that went along with it all to becoming a young man that longed to pay mind to what was going on behind the curtain. I had questions, I wanted answers, and I needed proof so I went to my father with these questions.

My dad and I didn’t have much of a relationship at all but one of the things that I always loved and respected about my dad was his honesty and his outspokenness. If you’ve ever read my blog you’re pretty much reading my dad. Anyway, I remember talking to him about my questioning about God. My dad didn’t beat around the bush or try to condemn me for being a doubting Thomas. He asked me, “Why did you stop believing in Santa Clause?” I said, “Because I learned that it was you and mom.” He said, “You had proof. Do you feel like you need physical proof to believe in God?” I told him, “I think so because I feel like God is pretty much like Santa Clause so unless someone can show me pictures and prove that there is a God, I don’t know that I can believe it.” My dad smiled and said, “I think you answered your questions, Donald. It’s your choice and you have to follow whatever path makes you happy and what makes you feel fulfilled.”

My dad told me once that the reason why he maintained his faith and belief in God was because it was all he ever knew and that it got him through the days. He and my mother both found solace in the thought that some great, powerful deity looked over them, tried them, gifted them, and promised them some kind of grand afterlife hangsuite in the sky. They didn’t need proof and they didn’t have any questions about it. It was their choice to believe and thankfully I had two parents (mom was less than enthused although) who respected my decision to question religion and to call to the stand all the beliefs that had been instilled in me since birth. I even went as far as to meet with a priest once to try and see what he could do to convince me that there was indeed a God, an almighty “father” in the sky. When I addressed my issues with religion and faith in general, he very honestly said to me, “I cannot make you believe in something that you are already set on not believing in. Maybe someday in your journey and your search you will find something that will rekindle your faith but that is for you and only you to decide.” I was very thankful for that conversation as he was a really guy. He didn’t tell me I was going to hell. He didn’t tell me I was going to live a life of torment. He merely stated the obvious.

It was also the “tall tales” and stories fed to me as a young man growing up Catholic that I found hard to even remotely believe in. Tales of a man living in the belly of a whale, tales of a man who lead his people through the desert (of which there is no archaeological proof) and parting the Red Sea, a man who built a huge fucking boat and collected two of every fucking animal on the planet and survived a huge flood, a man who walked on water, and a man who was crucified and then rose from the dead. This is just the tip of the iceberg here and honestly, these stories alone are the kind of things that could get you locked away in a penitentiary. The only proof of any of this is a collection writings of people passed down from generation to generation in many different languages. Because it is documented in text I’m supposed to believe that this shit really happened? Ok, then. So I guess that means that Hobbits are real, right? I mean, it’s written in a book. The older I got, the more ridiculous it got and the harder it got to accept these things as truth.

Over the years I would come in contact with many people of many different spiritual walks of life. I would come to know Christians, Buddhists, Satanists, Pagans, Baptists, etc. Everyone that I talked to had firm roots to their faith and their beliefs which I always admired. I admired them mainly because they had something that they could hold on to; something that gave them some glimmer of promise and some ounce of hope or even salvation from the world. I found myself (and still do to this day) to identify more as a seeker than anything else. A friend told me once that the world is made of three types: Finders, Seekers, and those that are content and happy just being. Being born with and extremely curious mind is what made me feel more in line with the seekers. You may at this point be asking, “What are you seeking?” Honestly, I’m not seeking salvation or solace. I’m not looking to be saved or taken in by any denomination. I am seeking knowledge and understanding about why people believe in the things they do.

I have had many interesting conversations with people of all different faiths but every now and then I hear something that just absolutely blows me out of the water. I recently heard someone of a strong Christian faith talking about why they believe that Jesus rose from the dead. This person went on to say that they believed in this because there were over 500 eyewitnesses to his resurrection. She actually knows of this because of some writing by a guy named Josh McDowell. It wasn’t so much that this person believed as much as it was that the pompousness of saying something to the form of, “There is proof that Jesus rose from the dead therefore you have no choice other than to believe.” To me, that’s no different than saying, “I know 20 people who saw Jerry Garcia’s face in a rainbow at a Phil Lesh & Friends show back in 2007. You must believe that Jerry Garcia was in that rainbow.” Sounds pretty ridiculous doesn’t it? How could any educated person believe these things? I guess the answer to that is, faith. Fine. You have your faith but don’t be so arrogant as to try and convince me that there is solid, undeniable “proof” and that this is why I should believe.

Over the years, I have read many books to try and quench my thirst for spiritual knowledge. Books such as Many Lives Many Masters, books on Paganism and Witchcraft all educated me and gave me knowledge about things I never had before. Of all of the books I read though, it was Anton LaVey’s Satanic Bible that I felt more connected to than anything. Reading more like a book of self help and self empowerment, how could I not relate to a book that in so many words tells the reader to live life to the fullest, to love your self more than anything, and to think for yourself without any repercussions. The only thing that turned me off was the inclusion of the Satanic sermons and incantations. That in general just felt a bit too religious to me and a bit on the corny side. That being said, I did love the fact that there was a difference between LaVeyan Satanism and Theistic Satanism. LaVey Satanists believe Satan is an archetype of purely psychological significance. Theistic Satanists believe that Satan is a real Spiritual entity existent outside of oneself.

Even this just felt a bit double standard to me. Is Satan real? Is Satan an “archetype of purely psychological significance”? Regardless, it was the over all philosophy of Satanism that I felt connected to. Overall, the Satanic philosophy felt more inclusive, less judgemental, and over all more believable that that of Christianity. This philosophy, also referred to as The Left Hand Path, was something that I wanted to know more about. One day I had a reached out to and had a great conversation with Tony “Demolition Man” Dolan of Venom, Inc. He and I had a lengthy discussion about this and that was when I learned a lot more about what the Left Hand Path was all about.

The above quote about following the Left Hand Path just seemed to make so much sense to me. This philosophy spoke to me and I felt connected to it. Just reading it out loud makes so much sense to me. In my past, as a Catholic Christian, I felt that everything I did was being scrutinized by the eyes of this great God in the sky. I also felt shame in pleasure. Why was it a “sin” in the eyes of God to masturbate? Why was it a “sin” in the eyes of God to enjoy sex with a consenting partner? Why was it a sin for someone to be homosexual or bi-sexual when this is something that is something that is “you”, not a decision you made? The day that I officially denounced Christianity was in 1991 and from that moment on I felt free. I felt free to live my life as I choose without the fear of being judged. I felt free to explore sexuality without the fear of sin and I felt free to just live. If anything, I feel that that day was the day that I was truly born and since then I have been happy and content. I feel no void, I feel no suffering, and I feel no remorse. I continue to be the best person I can be and I do so not because of faith and/or fear of God but because of humanity. Being a good person isn’t religious; it’s humane.

So does this mean that I am a Satanist? I’m still not sure of that one as I am still acquiring knowledge and doing my research. What I can tell you is that I am not a Christian. I do not believe in the fairy tales and tall stories recorded in a book that has been translated oh so loosely for thousands of years. What I do believe is that the philosophy of the Left Hand Path is one of the first things to connect with me in a long, long time of seeking. “I follow the Left Hand Path. Self value before self sacrifice. Guidance above worship. Inspiration. Enlightenment. Empowerment. Eccentric, Trantric, Orphic, & Cosmic. Unconventional & unapologetic.” Just typing that alone gave me a sense of pride and just reaffirms that I am indeed getting closer to finding what it is that I am looking for.